Area417

Diebold, Still Stealing Votes After All These Years

Fresh off the press, a report from a team of computer scientists finds Diebold machines are riddled with security flaws.

A little of what they found:

• Data on the memory cards for the optical-scan machines is unauthenticated
• The memory card “signature” does not adequately detect malicious tampering
• The touch-screen machine automatically installs bootloader and operating system updates from the memory card without verifying the authenticity of the updates (Link to Threat Level - Wired Blogs)

This video shows how it can be done.

One has to wonder why the Iowa GOP has chosen to use this faulty machine during the upcoming Iowa Straw Poll. My understanding is that after the vote,  one person will retire to tabulate the votes;  no observers allowed. Now, why is that?

Several groups are joining together to conduct a verification EXIT POLL at the Ames Straw Poll, using paper ballots, in order to get a fair count.

More on the subject of voter fraud: A House Without Doors, Black Box Voting,
Democracy Imperiled, Inside a U.S. Election Vote Counting Program

Audit? We Don't Need No Stinking Audit!

At least, that was the opinion of the Springfield News-Leader back on June 12th, when the editorial took police and firefighters to task for pushing for an audit (because the city has screwed them by underfunding their pension plan.)

News-Leader then:

Step one should be to reach out to firefighters and police officers and forge an agreement that they will stop with their plans to force an audit of city finances by State Auditor Claire McCaskill.Such an audit is likely to cost more than $100,000, and by state law, the city will have to come up with that money somewhere. Find a way to stop the audit and spend that amount of money — even if it comes from reserves — on raises.

Do you suppose they regret having written that, since we now find that over $1 MILLION DOLLARS seems to be "missing" from Springfield's Municipal Court funds?

From today's (July 27th) News-Leader:

Funds missing from Springfield’s Municipal Court are now estimated at $1 million or more.

The new figure — more than double previous estimates — was announced this afternoon in a report released by the city manager’s office.

The report summarizes the city’s monthlong administrative investigation of the suspected embezzlement, which was discovered in mid-June.

Six years, SIX YEARS AGO, our city "leaders" were told that the city's accounting procedures needed to be revamped. Perhaps the problem is that they couldn't find an outside consultant to tell them how to proceed, since they need one to tell them what to do with major issues like what to do with storage containers.

TIME TO CLEAN HOUSE, SPRINGFIELD. Voters can get rid of our Mayor, Tom Carlson, along with four council members next year. Terms expire in 2007 for Sheila Wright, Ralph Manley, Conrad Griggs, and Bob Jones.

Louisiana Congressman Taped Pocketing Bribe

New Orleans Congressman William Jefferson (D) was  videotaped eagerly accepting $100,00 in payola from an FBI informant.

At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa.

      As Jefferson and the informant passed notes about what percentage the                    lawmaker's family might receive, the congressman "began laughing and said, 'All these damn notes we're writing to each other as if we're talking, as if the FBI is watching," according to the affidavit. Link: USA Today

If the name sounds familiar, it might be because Jefferson had National Guardsmen attending to his personal property while the floodwaters of Katrina held citizens of New Orleans at bay on their rooftops.

Democrats, do start chanting "culture of corruption" whenever the mood strikes you.

Clarification: Both audio and vidiotapes exist.         

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Tags: Politics, Democrats, Corruption

Phishers Set Traps On eBay

Phishing scams use forged Web sites that look like legitimate sites in an attempt to dupe Internet users into giving up sensitive data, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details. Cybercrooks typically use spam e-mail to lure people to their Web traps. But on eBay, they also take advantage of the auction listings on the site itself.

Some of the scams run on the auction Web site are almost invisible to the untrained eye. eBay lets sellers customize their auction pages using Web programming techniques and automated tools. However, attackers are abusing this freedom to build auction pages that include a rigged listing. When potential customers click on the link, it sends them to a phishing site.

eBay offers a toolbar for your browser that helps detect fake sites, but the drawback is that it only works with Internet Explorer.

Link: Phishers set hidden traps on eBay | Tech News on ZDNet.

New Scam

Oh, look what I found in the mail--an offer for my domain:

Hello,

I have a client who's working on a new project and
would be interested in purchasing your domain name,
"area417.com".

Would you be willing to sell?

Please reply with any interest at your earliest
convenience.

If you could give me a price or ballpark figure to
take back to my client that would be great as well.

Thank you,

Eric Rowe
eric@ebrnetwork.com

NamePros has the goods on this scam--you reply with your price and get an email telling you to send your banking information .

It appears that ebernetwork.com is registered to one Sergey Karpov in the Ukraine. As one poster noted, "Within a week of creation, a nice western name 'Eric Rowe' is writing on behalf of clients."

*Blush*  O.K. I have to fess-up.  At first I thought the offer was legit. I would've never given anyone any banking info though.